Transcript

00:00:01

>> A test for Donald Trump on the South China Sea. Two US officials exclusively tell Reuters that Beijing is almost finished building nearly two dozen structures on their artificial islands and they look built to house weapons. Likely long range surface to air missiles. They say that would expand China's air defense umbrella over the islands that begs the question on how President Trump will react.

00:00:24

His administration calls the island building illegal. The official say, the buildings where China's already laid out military linked airstrips could be considered a military escalation. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson angered China last month after he said, it should be stopped from building it's South China Sea islands.

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He compared Beijing's island claims to Russia taking Crimea from Ukraine. Since then, both Tillerson and Trump have walked back their language with Trump even pledging to honor the US one China policy this month in a phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Officials said, the new structure's don't pose a significant threat to American forces in the region, given how visible and vulnerable those buildings are.

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They say, instead it appears to be a political test of the waters to see how far Trump will go.